“Standing here is already more than I should be doing.”
Ciro let out a slow breath and glanced toward the door, his attention flicking briefly outward, checking something unseen before returning to me.
“It’s fine,” he said at last.
“I’ll keep him occupied. He won’t come near the kitchen.”
That made me pause.
I turned my head and looked at him properly for the first time, no longer just aware of his presence but studying it—measuring him the way I would anyone else in a place like this.
“And why would you do that?” I asked, my voice steady but edged with quiet suspicion.
“Aren’t you all the same?” My gaze held his, searching.
“Vincenzo hates me. Renzo hates me. By all logic, you should hate me too.”
I let the words settle before continuing, softer now but no less sharp.
“So why are you helping me at all?”
“Let him come,” I added. “Let him see me standing here, doing nothing. Let him decide what to do with that.”
My shoulders lifted in a small, careless shrug that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
“Let him punish me.”
A pause.
“I don’t care.”
The lie sat between us, thin and brittle.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he looked at me—really looked this time.
Not the passing, surface-level glance most people gave, but something deeper.
His gaze lingered just long enough to feel intentional.
For a fraction of a second, something shifted in his expression.
Subtle.
There was a flicker there—something that could have been amusement, or interest.
Almost flirtatious in the way it brushed past his composure before it could fully form.
And then it was gone.
Smoothed over.
Locked back behind the same calm restraint he had carried from the start.
Maybe I imagined it.
Maybe I didn’t.
